TOPEKA, Kan. (June 12, 2015) – What do you get when you mix moderately priced racecars and endurance racing? Bracket Enduro. The first of these SCCA events was held June 6-7 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, in Thompson, Connecticut.
While the name itself suggests a departure from the typical SCCA Club Racing format, the differences between the traditional road racing program and Bracket Enduro go much deeper than that. The goal of this new program is to get more people involved in road racing who may not have access to a fully-prepped race car, built to the full requirements outlined in the SCCA General Competition Regulations (GCR). The hope is to give those who want to race a place to do that against drivers in moderately-modified cars.
Half Mast Racing is one of the teams that took part in the first event. While they did not take the overall win, they did finish first among the cars in Group Four. The six-person team campaigned a Nissan 240sx over a combined 11 hours of racing between Saturday and Sunday, proceeded by a one-hour, thirty-minute practice/qualifying session on Saturday morning.
Evan Bellanceau, of West Harford, Connecticut, was the car owner, and ringleader for the team. The car was originally bought to become a drift car, but plans changed after learning of the new road racing initiative started by SCCA.
“I’ve been into the 240s since I was 14 and first heard of, and saw, drifting,” Bellanceau said. “I’ve had been waiting for the day I found another. I had a friend who had a white S14, and life had brought us back together. I always told him I would take it off his hands whenever he was ready to let it go when he would talk about buying a grown-up car, at the gym. One day he texted me and said whenever I wanted it, the car was mine. I picked it up later that week.
“I knew the car was tired. It was a New England car and had two previous owners - making me the fourth - who had to get rid of it due to DUIs. It had 205,000 miles on the clock and original motor. The last 60,000 miles it went without an oil change and was beaten to hell. It was a project, and that’s what I wanted.”
The project began in the fall of 2014, when the car was purchased. However, before work could begin, it took a couple months to get the accessories together to make the engine and transmissions swap happen. By the end of January 2015, the preliminary engine work was complete and the car was drivable.
On March 1, Bellanceau drove the car to his home. At that point, the plan was still to transform the car into a drift racer. So, the rear end was pulled – with the intention to weld the differential – among other modifications to make the car able to hold up to the rigors of motorsports.
“While it was being put back together, I came across the Bracket Enduro ad on Facebook while at work and turned to Will . He sat right behind me, and I handed him the phone. I told him I was in. Later that night, he wrote me an essay via email. I started to acquire a team and the direction of the car changed.
“We knew we didn’t have the finances or the resources to do it all by ourselves in that little time, even though he did have a shop in which we could work. I hit up a select group of people, some by simply asking ‘Want to play race car?’ When I had the team together, we met at Will's shop and had our first team meeting. I remember writing ‘four weeks’ on the whiteboard. The rest of what happened during those four weeks was a blur.”
The car roared to life, once again, at about 2:00 a.m. on the morning of Friday, June 5. Following some finishing touches, the group loaded up and headed to the track.
Saturday morning’s qualifying went well for the team as they were fifth of the 15 cars entered. That landed them in the lead of Group Four, more than 10 seconds ahead of their closest competition. However, it was the two, five-hour, 30-minute segments that would be the bigger test. The team had proven the car had pace, but could it last?
The goal of finishing such a long race came under heavy doubt.
“Turns out the exhaust was running hot enough to melt braided power steering lines and they burst on Ben , shooting fluid over the exhaust manifold and even the windscreen and sending smoke and flame abound,” Bellanceau said. “A few of us were on the bridge watching him go around and had started down the hill because we hadn't seen him for two laps. The next thing we knew he was running from the pits waving his hands yelling ‘FIRE!’
“We got it back in the paddock and thanks to some quality ‘engineering’ teamwork and two other teams - the guys with the Citation who gave us power steering lines and the Alfa team who donated some automatic transmission fluid - we were back on track in an hour. I lost my stint for the day, but I ran a double the next. My personal low was blowing out the right front tire on day two. But, I never doubted we would make it through. As long as everyone could keep it on track, I knew we could.”
The official results go on to tell the rest of the story. The 240sx did survive the 11-hour odyssey, carrying the Half Mast Racing to a third-place overall finish. The team was also the Group Four winner, holding 17 laps in hand over their closest rivals.
“The high point of the weekend, I think for all of us, had to have been seeing the car take the checkered flag and Erik parading around on the victory lap,” Bellanceau said. “WE DID IT! It was a big sense of accomplishment for all of us. Most of us had put together a racecar before, but never in three weeks. To successfully see that happen was huge.
“I had also never organized or planned anything to this magnitude in my life. So, that was a pretty big personal achievement there. I had a blast, got two hours of seat time, and I was able to bring some of the biggest smiles of sheer to the faces of my friends. I’m glad we did it, and we'll do it again.”
More information about Bracket Enduro can be found here.
Image: The Nissan 240sx of Half Mast Racing makes laps at Thompson Speedway during the inaugural Bracket Enduro event.
Courtesy of Clarus Studios
